Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore has announced that the Telco is planning to acquire the intellectual property to its M-Pesa financial service platform from Britain’s Vodafone at a deal worth 12 million euro ($13.4 million)
He said that the deal which will be done in partnership with South Africa’s Vodafone would allow users to use the platform to make significant savings in royalties paid to Vodafone and expand the service to new African markets.
“We are taking ownership of M-Pesa, the brand and the intellectual property. Joint ownership between Vodacom and us and we then use that as a platform into running into other markets across the continent,” he was quoted by Reuters.
He said that the plan to form a joint venture with Vodacom and acquire the intellectual property rights to M-Pesa would allow the partners to more easily develop local products.
“Given that the bulk of the M-Pesa business is in Africa, between Tanzania and Kenya, it is right for us to be determinants.
“More important than the significant savings is about us determining the future, the roadmap of M-Pesa because at the moment the roadmap is determined by Vodafone,”
Currently, the company pays 2 per cent of its annual M-Pesa revenue to Vodafone. In the financial year ending March, the revenue from M-Pesa stood at 75 billion shillings ($741 million). Vodafone holds a 5% stake in Safaricom, and for the venture to be successful, it requires regulatory and shareholder approvals in South Africa and Kenya.
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Safaricom extends CEO Bob Collymore’s contract to August 2020
